Blood Red
by little lucifer
Summary: What happens when Edward accidentally kills someone he was never supposed to kill? How will Bella react? Can she forgive him?


I stared down at the mess I had made on the carpet of the living room. I had lost control of myself for two seconds and reacted badly to something that had been a friendly gesture. Bella was not going to be pleased with me…

Charlie Swan, Chief of Police in the small town of Forks, lay spread-eagled in his own home, blood still pouring from a very large hole in his jugular vein. The culprit of said hole – a penknife that he had attempted to hand to me and slipped. It had seemed as if he was going to attempt my decapitation, so I reacted in a split second, lightly flicking my wrist out and sending the penknife into a reverse spin, landing firmly in the jugular vein. He had died instantly from shock, but his heart continued to pump blood into the floor.

Noticing a sealed envelope in his hand, I bent to pick it up and wiped the smeared blood off of it, revealing the reason Charlie had the penknife in his hand. The envelope was sealed and required a sharp object to get it open. Flicking my fingernail across the seal, my eyes fell on something that would have made my beating heart lurch into my throat. Note that I said beating…

I held in my hand the revised version of Charlie's last will and testament. It held the typical information – who to leave his estate to, who was to look after Bella until she turned of age to live on her own, who was to become the new Chief…

That was all fine, but what really caught my eye were the first two things. He had left his estate to Bella, so she would at least have somewhere to come back to once she was through with college. Again, normal, right?

The item underneath it was what caught me off guard. I was to look after Bella, as were all of my other family members. I knew Charlie had been having problems with Renee lately but I didn't think they were _that_ serious.

My chest tightened considerably and my stomach felt like it was going to rip itself out of me, just to have itself thrown into the toilet. Not only was I ashamed of my own actions, but I would have to explain all of this to Bella and that was surely not going to go well.

Without realizing it, I had begun to pace. I stopped in front of a wall. A blank wall. Letting loose a loud roar of "DAMMIT!" I punched the wall gently as I could, but it still sent pieces of plaster, wood and drywall flying all over the room and the floor, making a bigger mess that what I had made in the first place.

It was then I noticed two things – splinters under my fingernails, which I began to pick out, and the time. Bella was due home in 10 minutes from her shift at the sporting goods store. Great. Not nearly enough time to have my apology speech written.

I threw out the splinters and the small mess from the wall just as I heard the familiar rumble of Bella's old truck pulling into the driveway. I sighed. "Mike." He _always_ offered to close up for her, as if doing that was going to get him that much closer to her accepting his proposition of a date.

As I heard the truck door slam, I noticed a strange taste in my mouth. It was a very interesting taste. The only way I can describe it is winter balled up. If I was warm, it would have chilled me right through to the bone, made them brittle and I'd end up as a pile of bones on the floor.

The door of the house opened, breaking me from the reverie. Not soon after, I heard her angelic voice ring out. "Hey Edward." She had crossed the gap between the front door and me in a matter of seconds, wrapping her slender arms around me, sending shivers of joy and remorse up my spine.

She noticed the smell almost instantly. "Oh my God! What is that _smell_?" She covered her nose with the top of her shirt. "Did you have a snack in here and forget to clean up? I hope Charlie doesn't find it when he gets home."

I swallowed a growing lump in my throat. "I'm sorry Bella… it was an accident, I swear it."

She looked at me like I had just grown a second head with an offset nose. "What are you talking about? You know you can have a snack if you need one, just as long as you clean up afterwards. I'll grab the bleach. We can get this cleaned up before Charlie gets home from work." She went to the cleaning closet to grab the bucket and the bleach.

I can't believe she didn't notice Charlie's cruiser sitting in the back part of the driveway. I followed a few paces behind her and when she reached the closet, I wrapped my arms around her gently, causing her to shiver involuntarily. "Bella, Charlie's not going to be worrying about the mess I made," I whispered quietly, almost more to myself than to her.

She turned in my arms, staring up at me with her beautiful brown eyes. "What are you talking about?" she asked again. "Charlie's going to be home any minute and you're too busy to help because you're dropping riddles for me to figure out!" She opened the closet, grabbed the bleach and moved for the living room.

Swallowing the lump in my throat that seemed to have resurfaced and followed again, knowing what was going to happen before it did.

Sure enough, I heard a loud, piercing scream, the bucket of bleach thudding to the floor and then the rush of Bella's footsteps as she bolted to the sink to empty the contents of her last meal for the garbage disposal.

I quietly moved behind her, not daring to try and hold her, knowing she'd probably push me off. "I'm sorry Bells, it was an accident."

She had begun to sob, tears pouring down her face, making what little eyeliner she had on start making rivers of black ooze that ran down the crevices of her face. "You _accidentally_ killed my father, one of the only people I actually love more than you? How do you expect me to believe that?" she said, her body shaking more from anger than from grief. "Let's just say for one second that I believe you. How did it happen?"

I calmly explained the situation to her. Me showing up out of the blue and Charlie inviting me in, explaining you'd be off work in a few minutes. His going upstairs to find something he said he wanted to show me, his slip while trying to hand me the penknife and finally, my split second reaction that lead to his death.

Running a hand through her hair, she moved to the front door, heading outside to get some fresh air. I debated just slipping out the back door and taking the long way home to let the girl grieve in peace, but she called, "You coming Edward?"

So much for a quiet escape. I replied, "Coming!" In a split second, I was out on the front stoop, sitting down beside her. We simply sat there for a few minutes, her head leaning gently on my shoulder, one of my arms draped around her shoulders.

Finally unable to bear the silence any longer, I spoke. "I'm sorry Bella… I made a mistake today and there's nothing I can do to fix it."

She sighed. "I know. I forgive you though, Edward. Nobody's perfect. You did what you thought you had to do. I'm sure I would have done the same thing… or something close to it."

Gently slipping away from her, I rose. "I should leave. You need some time alone." Just before I could leap into the dark night sky and start my run home, she grabbed my hand and pulled at me gently.

When she spoke, she was almost inaudible. "Everyone I care about always ends up leaving me. I don't want you to leave me Edward."

That small phrase would have broken my heart. Sitting back down, I resumed my previous position and said, "Okay. I'll stay here. I won't go anywhere."

She began quietly sobbing, shoulders rising and falling in rhythm with her sobbing crescendos and decrescendos. I began to hum the right hand melody line of the piano ballad I had written for her a while ago, starting quietly and began to increase in volume.

Soon, the flow of tears stopped almost abruptly and she began to hum along. After our unison humming for a few bars, I broke into the harmony line that my left hand had added, feeling her shiver with the precision of my notes… but I could feel something under the surface. It was the beginnings of an emotional scar.

I've felt many of those in my lifetime and I have a few myself, but the part of this one that bothers me is that I know I can't kiss her and make it go away. Knowing I can't whisper, "It's going to be alright" and make her feel better. Knowing she'll probably never love me the same way again.

And that, my friends, is the last proverbial nail in my coffin.


End file.
